1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a connector.
2. Description of the Related Art
A known connector has a housing in which terminal fittings and a shorting terminal are accommodated. The shorting terminal shorts the terminal fittings when the connector is not connected to a mating connector. However, a short releasing portion in the mating connector releases a shorted state of the terminal fittings when the connector is connected properly to the mating connector.
The shorting terminal in a connector of this type generally has resilient contact pieces to be brought into contact with terminal fittings and the resilient contact pieces that are formed to be resiliently deformable in a vertical direction. A tip part of the resilient contact piece is formed into an inverted V shape and the apex thereof serves as a contact portion to be brought into contact with the terminal fitting. An obliquely extending part located before the contact portion in a connecting direction defines a guide for guiding the short releasing portion to between the contact portion and the terminal fitting. The guide needs to have a suitable length to fully exhibit a function of guiding the short releasing portion.
There has been a demand to miniaturize a shorting terminal by reducing the height of the shorting terminal as much as possible. However, the resilient contact pieces are deformed resiliently a large amount in a height direction when being pressed by the short releasing portion, the shorting terminal needs to have a suitable height so that the tip of the guiding portion extending long does not contact a wall of a shorting terminal accommodating chamber.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,171,124 discloses a connector with a housing that has an opening on a wall of the shorting terminal accommodating chamber for allowing the tips of the resilient contact pieces to escape in the housing, thereby preventing the contact of the resilient contact pieces and reducing the height of the shorting terminal. However, the shorting terminal accommodating chamber and cavities provided therebelow communicate by the opening provided on the wall of the shorting terminal accommodating chamber. Thus, there has been a problem of a possibility of electrically shorting the terminal fitting and the terminal fitting located below even though they are not supposed to be in contact.
The present invention was completed based on the above situation and aims to provide a connector capable of combining the miniaturization of a shorting terminal and the securement of insulation performance.